Saving homes from the landfill

Edmonton painter Jennifer Annesley and her husband Neil Zinger, a builder, pose in the Allendale home they recently renovated. For more information about their projects, go to 1912studio.com.Larry Wong
/ Edmonton Journal

The basement has been finished as a self-contained suite that can also be used as a family room or extra bedroom.Larry Wong
/ Edmonton Journal

A built-in bookshelf has been added on the landing.Larry Wong
/ Edmonton Journal

The main floor half-bath.Larry Wong
/ Edmonton Journal

The Allendale home before renovations.Handout photo
/ Edmonton Journal

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At first blush, the beautiful house in Allendale looks like an infill project — a brand-new home built on the site of an old, semi-bungalow.

But look closer and you'll see the bones of the original, postwar house stripped down to the studs, its hardwood refinished, refitted with new windows, insulation and weeping tile to create an entirely new, modern house on the strengthened skeleton of the old.

It's a favourite pattern for local builder Neil Zinger and his wife, well-known watercolour artist Jennifer Annesley: Find an old home with lots of potential in a mature neighbourhood and renovate it so extensively, buyers who might normally be drawn to a brand-new home in the suburbs will prefer to live more centrally in a modern house with character.

"There's just something you miss that's not there when you build new," says Zinger of his laborious efforts to retrofit older homes from top to bottom.

Even the environmental benefit of keeping all that building material out of the landfill needs to be considered, he adds.

"My philosophy would be living large within a smaller footprint. And because of the massive expansion of the city, I think we should try to do more of that."

Zinger worked in construction for many years as the city expanded its suburbs, "watching a wheat field one morning turn into a clay pit the next morning. It has to be done — I appreciate a city has to grow — but not at the sacrifice of the inner city."

That's why he and Annesley have done all their renovations so far — seven homes, including their own 1912 house in nearby Queen Alexandra — in older, central neighbourhoods.

"There's so many of these old houses in these areas and some of them need to be bulldozed, but so many of them are still structurally sound," says Annesley.

"The problem is people just renovate them till the next owner, so it just prolongs the agony of these houses. But if you renovate them to this extent, as Neil says, they really have another 100 years in them so it's a green act in itself to save these old houses."

Without efforts like these by homeowners, neighbourhoods become dominated by rental houses, which isn't good for a community, says Zinger. A mix of about half owner-occupied and half rentals is far preferable, he says.

The challenge is to create homes that people want to live in. To that end, Zinger broke up the small, closed rooms of the traditional 1 1/2-storey, opening up the main floor and creating a circular traffic flow from the front hall into the living room, through a new dining room and out French doors onto the back deck.

There's a main-floor office, separated from the front hall by French doors, and a stunning kitchen with black granite countertops, an eating counter and high-end appliances including a Bertazzoni commercial gas stove.

Every inch of the house has been completely remade. The roof was taken off in the renovation to create two roomier bedrooms upstairs and create a full bathroom with a soaker tub and glassed-in shower.

The basement has been finished as a self-contained suite or it can be used as a family room and extra bedroom. In all, the former 1,200-square-foot house now has more than 1,400 square feet of space, as well as the basement suite.

Many of the charming characteristics of an older home have been retained, or added. There's lots of architectural mouldings and details, built-in bookcases and small nooks, crannies and closets for storage and display.

A couple of decorated Ukrainian eggs that were found during the renovation are on display in the built-in bookcase on the landing, alongside a framed, 1954 dollar bill that had been folded and slipped under one of the stairs.

The high-efficiency furnace and hot water tank are brand new, as is all the wiring, which includes conduit that runs to just about every corner of the house to accommodate all manner of technology.

"Mechanically, this is a new house — state of the art, really," says Zinger. "I know everybody's not doing it this way, but it's the way we want to do it."

Adds Annesley, "We just want to renovate houses that we'd want to live in ourselves."

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